"At thinking you're adorable," was his reply.

"Well, the caterpillars have been known to stop the train, but you
must remember that it's rather hard on the caterpillars," I proclaimed
as we swung off the trail and headed in for Alabama Ranch.

_Sunday the Thirteenth_

On Friday night there were heavy showers again, and now Whinnie
reports that our Marquis wheat couldn't look better and ought to run
well over forty bushels to the acre. We are assured of sufficient
moisture, but our two enemies yclept Fire and Hail remain. I should
like to have taken out hail insurance, but I haven't the money on
hand.

I can at least make sure of my fire-guards. Turning those essential
furrows will be good training for Peter. That individual, by the way,
has been quieter and more ruminative of late, and, if I'm not
mistaken, a little gentler in his attitude toward me. Yet there's not
a trace of pose about him, and I feel sure he wouldn't harm the morals
of a lady-bug. He's kind and considerate, and doing his best to be a
good pal. Whinnie, by the way, regards me with a mildly reproving eye,
and having apparently concluded that I am a renegade, is concentrating
his affection on Dinkie, for whom he is whittling out a new Noah's Ark
in his spare time. He is also teaching Dinkie to ride horseback,
lifting him up to the back of either Nip or Tuck when they come for
water and letting him ride as far as the stable. He looks very small
up on that big animal.

At night, now that the evenings are so long, Whinnie takes my laddie
on his knee and tells him stories, stories which he can't possibly
understand, I'm sure, but Dinkie likes the drone of Whinnie's voice
and the feel of those rough old arms about his little body. We all
hunger for affection. The idiot who said that love was the bitters in
the cocktail of life wasn't either a good liver or a good philosopher.
For love is really the whole cocktail. Take that away, and nothing is
left....

I seem to be getting moodier, as summer advances. Alternating waves of
sourness and tenderness sweep through me, and if I wasn't a busy woman
I'd possibly make a fine patient for one of those fashionable
nerve-specialists who don't flourish on the prairie.

But I can't quite succeed in making myself as miserable as I feel I
ought to be. There seems to be a great deal happening all about us,
and yet nothing ever happens. My children are hale and hearty, my
ranch is f